7 ms·

I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Cause that's the current system

I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Cause that's the current system for us: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w...

wishinghorse 7y ago
Yes, that's the point. Adjust votes' "weight" based on population density.
- smolsky 7y ago
  ...and adjustments have been happening over many decades. That's why, say, California has many more electoral votes (55) than Montana (3). Yet it's still not completely proportional as California has about 40M people while Montana has just over 1M.
  - adolph 7y ago
    Yes, any state always gets a minimum of three since the number of senators is two and representatives is one (the minimum). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
- baddox 7y ago
  Why should equal areas on the map have equal amounts of political influence? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
  - davidw 7y ago
    I am picturing an interview conducted by the 'news team' at The Onion, interviewing a sage brush somewhere in Wyoming, because it's more important that actual people in, say, California.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
In Nevada, they joke that they have "the Senator from Reno" and "the Senator from Los Vegas".
- atommclain 7y ago
  Just recently I learned that most of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government (84.9 percent according to https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/heres-how-land-is-used-by-the-federal-government-in-nevada/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/heres-how-land-is-used-by...). It's more a federal state, than a state state in a land ownership sense.
abacadaba 7y ago
I mean what's next? Senator's votes will count more than representatives? We must stop this madness!
umvi 7y ago
> I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk who have never even stepped foot out of the city. For example, city folks are more likely to vote for increases in property taxes - not that they care too much since they only have a tiny apartment - but it hits the people outside of the city with lots of land (for farming) really hard. It's just like the "rich getting richer" conundrum. Once you have a large city, it will gain more people faster than a small town just by virtue of the properties of growth. So pretty soon you'll have a few megacities that get to dictate the government of the entire country and if you live anywhere else; too bad, the city folk are in charge now.
- sacheendra 7y ago
  The property taxes example doesn't seem right. Cost of a small apartment in NYC is equal to the cost of several acres of farmland. Proportional property taxes would impact both demographics similarly.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    The city dweller isn't earning money off of their land.
    - klyrs 7y ago
      Naturally, this means that farmland should be taxed more, not less. /s But no. Land owners make money extracting rent. The difference is that farming is subsidized.
- danaris 7y ago
  The plurality of the geography of NY State may be agricultural land, but that is not the same thing as saying that the majority of its people are farmers. If you cut NYC off from the rest of the state, yes, you'd have a majority-rural population, and probably a red state—but not majority farmer and farm workers. I live and work in rural NY State. For every farmer out here, there are dozens of teachers, janitors, computer programmers, hairstylists, restaurant owners & workers, and every other type of profession you have in hamlets, small towns, and non-mega-cities. And yeah, there are a lot of people here who don't want property taxes to go up. They don't want any taxes to go up, because they're rural Republicans who have bought into the line that taxes are bad hook, line, and sinker. But as rural Republicans, they mostly don't even make much noise about wanting taxes to go down. The signs you see along the side of the road are clamoring to repeal gun control laws that prevent violent criminals and the mentally ill from purchasing guns. Just because New York City has enough population to drown the rest of the state in doesn't mean that we should give the rest of the state disproportionate power.
alexis_fr 7y ago
You could view it as: equality of vote per person _and square mile_.
zaroth 7y ago
That alternative is that the rural vote doesn’t count at all. Urban cities form extremely powerful electoral blocks in Congress which can pass huge amount of pro-urban legislation and pro-urban budgets. The rural areas have much less representation but at least enough so that they can perhaps dog-trade for policies that are important to them. Remember that laws pass on majority or super-majority rules in Congress. So once you have enough to form a coalition your vote “matters” or not.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  The rural areas have much less representation Isn’t this literally not true?
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Key word “areas”. Of course it’s true. WY has 1 representative to CA’s 53.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      CA has 53 districts. Those districts are under representative because they each get 2/53 of a Senator and WY district gets 2. State borders are fictions.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        The Senate was never intended to be representative of the population. That is specifically why we have both the House and the Senate.
        Redoubts 7y ago
        And states were never intended to be drawn to balance out slave power. And political parties were never intended to exist in federal government. Guess someone fucked up.

wishinghorse 7y ago

Yes, that's the point. Adjust votes' "weight" based on population density.

smolsky 7y ago
...and adjustments have been happening over many decades. That's why, say, California has many more electoral votes (55) than Montana (3). Yet it's still not completely proportional as California has about 40M people while Montana has just over 1M.
- adolph 7y ago
  Yes, any state always gets a minimum of three since the number of senators is two and representatives is one (the minimum). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
baddox 7y ago
Why should equal areas on the map have equal amounts of political influence? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
- davidw 7y ago
  I am picturing an interview conducted by the 'news team' at The Onion, interviewing a sage brush somewhere in Wyoming, because it's more important that actual people in, say, California.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

In Nevada, they joke that they have "the Senator from Reno" and "the Senator from Los Vegas".

atommclain 7y ago
Just recently I learned that most of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government (84.9 percent according to https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/heres-how-land-is-used-by-the-federal-government-in-nevada/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/heres-how-land-is-used-by...). It's more a federal state, than a state state in a land ownership sense.

abacadaba 7y ago

I mean what's next? Senator's votes will count more than representatives? We must stop this madness!

umvi 7y ago

> I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk who have never even stepped foot out of the city. For example, city folks are more likely to vote for increases in property taxes - not that they care too much since they only have a tiny apartment - but it hits the people outside of the city with lots of land (for farming) really hard. It's just like the "rich getting richer" conundrum. Once you have a large city, it will gain more people faster than a small town just by virtue of the properties of growth. So pretty soon you'll have a few megacities that get to dictate the government of the entire country and if you live anywhere else; too bad, the city folk are in charge now.

sacheendra 7y ago
The property taxes example doesn't seem right. Cost of a small apartment in NYC is equal to the cost of several acres of farmland. Proportional property taxes would impact both demographics similarly.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  The city dweller isn't earning money off of their land.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    Naturally, this means that farmland should be taxed more, not less. /s But no. Land owners make money extracting rent. The difference is that farming is subsidized.
danaris 7y ago
The plurality of the geography of NY State may be agricultural land, but that is not the same thing as saying that the majority of its people are farmers. If you cut NYC off from the rest of the state, yes, you'd have a majority-rural population, and probably a red state—but not majority farmer and farm workers. I live and work in rural NY State. For every farmer out here, there are dozens of teachers, janitors, computer programmers, hairstylists, restaurant owners & workers, and every other type of profession you have in hamlets, small towns, and non-mega-cities. And yeah, there are a lot of people here who don't want property taxes to go up. They don't want any taxes to go up, because they're rural Republicans who have bought into the line that taxes are bad hook, line, and sinker. But as rural Republicans, they mostly don't even make much noise about wanting taxes to go down. The signs you see along the side of the road are clamoring to repeal gun control laws that prevent violent criminals and the mentally ill from purchasing guns. Just because New York City has enough population to drown the rest of the state in doesn't mean that we should give the rest of the state disproportionate power.

alexis_fr 7y ago

You could view it as: equality of vote per person _and square mile_.

zaroth 7y ago

That alternative is that the rural vote doesn’t count at all. Urban cities form extremely powerful electoral blocks in Congress which can pass huge amount of pro-urban legislation and pro-urban budgets. The rural areas have much less representation but at least enough so that they can perhaps dog-trade for policies that are important to them. Remember that laws pass on majority or super-majority rules in Congress. So once you have enough to form a coalition your vote “matters” or not.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
The rural areas have much less representation Isn’t this literally not true?
- zaroth 7y ago
  Key word “areas”. Of course it’s true. WY has 1 representative to CA’s 53.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    CA has 53 districts. Those districts are under representative because they each get 2/53 of a Senator and WY district gets 2. State borders are fictions.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      The Senate was never intended to be representative of the population. That is specifically why we have both the House and the Senate.
      - Redoubts 7y ago
        And states were never intended to be drawn to balance out slave power. And political parties were never intended to exist in federal government. Guess someone fucked up.